CHAP. III.] 67 



CHAPTER III. 



Port Nicholson. Wellington. Excursion into the Valley of 

 the Eritonga. 



WE stayed in Port Nicholson until the 4th of 

 October, during which time the agent of the New 

 Zealand Company completed the purchase of that 

 place. Nearly three years have elapsed since our 

 first visit ; and a spot scarcely known before that 

 time, and rarely if ever visited by Europeans, has 

 become the seat of a large settlement, with nearly 

 5000 inhabitants. Where a few hundred natives 

 then lived in rude villages, fearful of their neigh- 

 bours, but desirous of intercourse with Europeans, 

 and just beginning to be initiated into the forms of 

 Christian worship by a native missionary, there is 

 now a town, with warehouses, wharfs, club-houses, 

 horticultural and scientific societies, racecourse^, 

 in short, with all the mechanism of a civilized and 

 commercial community ; at this very place, where I 

 then enjoyed in all its fulness the wild aspect of 

 nature, and where the inhabitants, wild and un- 

 tamed, accorded well with their native scenery, 

 there is now the restless European, spreading around 

 all the advantages and disadvantages of civilization 

 and trade. Although aware that I have long been 



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